Gun advocates, Scientologists look for drug links to shootings

Dan Freedman

Updated 11:33 pm, Friday, April 26, 2013

WASHINGTON -- An unlikely coalition of gun-rights advocates, Scientologists and physician-skeptics is using post-Newtown outrage over gun violence to promote the view that psychiatric drugs fuel mass shooters.

"IT IS NOT GUNS" that are to blame for mass-shootings, Piazza wrote. Rather, "the common denominator (is) the creation of strong, mind altering, psychiatric drugs ... these drugs create the monsters who are killing their parents, teachers and schoolmates."

In Texas, Republican activist Bob Price said in a radio interview at a gun-rights rally in Austin that mass-casualty shooters "are on psychotropic drugs or under some sort of psychiatric care, and that's really where the discussion needs to be ... We need to shift the focus and get off of the hardware."

Gun-control advocates call drug-shooting linkage a thinly veiled ruse to obfuscate the main issue: The easy availability of firearms, particularly for those not qualified under law to buy them.

"This is just the latest example of the pro-gun forces working to divert attention to virtually anything in the wake of a mass shooting except the real issue, the guns themselves," said Josh Sugarmann, founder and executive director of the Violence Policy Center.

But other organizations and doctors are less interested in the gun issue than the drugs themselves. The Los Angeles-based Citizens Commission on Human Rights has an online petition demanding a federal investigation of the drug-shooting link and also a list of 31 instances of violence by individuals on psychiatric medications.

CCHA was founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology, a longtime opponent of psychiatry and psychiatric drugs. CCHA vice president Marla Filidei, herself a Scientologist, said that while most of the organization's employees are church members, it receives no financial support from the Church of Scientology, also Los Angeles-based.

The group hired a computer consultant to comb through Food & Drug Administration MedWatch data to isolate cases of psychiatric use linked to violent behavior. Their conclusion: Between 2004 and 2011, there were over 11,000 reports of psychiatric drugs and violence.

Approximately 63 million individuals in America are taking psychiatric medications, according to one estimate.

Among psychiatrists, Dr. Peter Breggin of Ithaca, N.Y., has made a career of accusing the psychiatric establishment of ignoring the side effects of antidepressants and other drugs. His books include: "Talking Back to Prozac" and "Medication Madness."

"Psychiatric drugs, including antidepressants, stimulants and tranquilizing sedatives, can cause violence," said Breggin. "It is imperative to find out what, if any, psychiatric drugs were being taken by 20-year-old Adam Lanza in the Newtown elementary school massacre."

Lanza killed 26 at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14 with a Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle and then shot himself with a handgun. Although his medical records have not been released, his uncle, James Lanza, told the New York Daily News that Adam Lanza was taking Fanapt, an antipsychotic medication used to treat schizophrenia.

Most psychiatrists dismiss the idea that psychiatric drugs cause violent behavior, arguing the issue is the underlying mental illness, not the drugs designed to treat it.

"It's a little like saying cold medicine makes people sneeze because so many people taking cold medications seem to sneeze," said Dr. Paul Appelbaum, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University and director of its Division of Law, Ethics and Psychiatry.

Those promoting the drugs-violence connection are "an odd set of allies, each with its own agenda, and they coalesce around this link," he said. "Anecdotes and coincidence will get you a long way if you're trying to promulgate untested theories. The unfortunate effect is that it may discourage people who could be helped by these medications, leading to more suffering."

Among other recent high-profile cases, James Holmes, who killed 12 at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., last year, had medications at his home including the antidepressant Zoloft and the anti-anxiety drug clonazepam, police said.

But Jared Loughner, who is serving concurrent life sentences for killing six and wounding former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., in Tucson, Ariz., in 2011, was not even diagnosed with schizophrenia until after his arrest. He was forcibly treated with anti-psychotic drugs so he could understand the charges against him.

Not all of those concerned about drugs and violence are pro-gun advocates, Scientologists or psychiatrist-outliers.

"This is an important matter of public health," said Gail Hornstein, a psychology professor at Mount Holyoke College. "Part of the reason we don't know for sure is we don't have basic facts in these cases about the psychiatric drug histories of the individuals.

"If we have the knowledge, we can start to see patterns. But if we don't have basic facts, we don't have the building blocks to conclude anything. That's the problem."

About 46 percent of people in the United States suffer from a diagnosable mental illness at some point in their lives, according to federal data.

A 2006 study of 65,103 patients taking anti-depressants uncovered 31 suicides and 76 serious suicide attempts, with rates higher for children and adolescents than adults.

In 2004, the FDA issued a warning on increased risk for suicide and suicidal thoughts for children and adolescents taking antidepressants, and upped the warning to age 25 in 2006.

FDA-approved medication guides for the popular antidepressants Prozac, Cymbalta and Zoloft state "depression or other serious mental illnesses are the most important causes of suicidal thoughts or actions." But they advise patients to contact their doctors or call 911 for "attempts to commit suicide," "acting on dangerous impulses," or "acting aggressive or violent."

For many psychiatrists, the good these drugs have done far outweighs any possible negative side effects.

"There are literally millions of people around the globe who have been greatly helped by the various psychotropic medications and whose lives are much better for having been treated with them," said Dr. Peter Yellowlees, professor of psychiatry at the University of California-Davis.

Dr. Amy Barnhorst, a crisis services specialist and also a psychiatrist at the University of California-Davis, said that while psychiatric meds don't cause violent behavior, "it would be negligent to overlook the fact that antidepressant treatment is most likely a hidden confounding variable ... something else that links these two things together besides causality."